


The Land of Lost Things

by FearLuckProphecy (EEhtirsA_the_other_one)



Category: Original Work
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 17:42:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12462681
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EEhtirsA_the_other_one/pseuds/FearLuckProphecy
Summary: But dreams, it seemed, came even to those who denied they had any at all, and they plagued her with promises too true to keep. She forgot about them every day when she woke up, but the images they brought to her pulsed within her vision like the residue of a camera flash. There were some days when she didn’t wake up at all, and instead walked within a warped reality. She fancied herself some sort of Alice in her own wonderland, walking up twisting kaleidoscope stairs into the depths of the earth as she chased her make-believe white rabbit.





	The Land of Lost Things

**Author's Note:**

> This is an idea that I actually wrote many years ago and then re-discovered today as I was deleting old documents on my computer. I dusted it off and edited a few things, but mostly it's the same thing I wrote when I was in the 10th grade. It came into being when my science class was asked to write Christmas letters to Cancer patients, and I was later walking through a department store and saw a Christmas ad with a cartoon fox wearing a scarf. It came into being as this tiny thing and never went anywhere. It may still go nowhere, but I thought I would put it here for you guys to enjoy anyways. If you like it I may continue it someday.

She remembered hearing the stories, the funny, whimsical tales of magical creatures and spirits who would bring good fortune to those who deserved it. Santa, she was told, worked really hard to bring all the children their gifts. Tooth Fairy gave children coins because she loved teeth, but she was too scared to be seen, so good kids kept their teeth under their pillows and let her come while they slept. Sandman gave everyone good dreams and chased away the nightmares. She liked Santa and Sandman the best. She would send letters to the North Pole every year, asking Santa to make her better and give her other friends a chance too. Every night before she went to bed, she asked Sandman to give Brian, who slept in a room down the hall, all of her good dreams because he always looked so sad.

She loved the stories, and she believed them. Who wouldn't love a jolly old man that gave children toys, or another who made daydreams a reality the moment she closed her eyes? All the older kids said they weren't real, but she didn't listen to them, at least for a while. After a time, she stopped believing. When she turned eleven, she realized that there were far more important things to think about. So what if Santa was real or not? It didn't matter. He never brought her what she wanted.

Eventually sandman even stopped coming. She could no longer dream of good things. But dreams, it seemed, came even to those who denied they had any at all, and they plagued her with promises too true to keep. She forgot about them every day when she woke up, but the images they brought to her pulsed within her vision liked the residue of a camera flash. There were some days when she didn't wake up at all, and instead walked within a warped reality. She fancied herself some sort of Alice in her own wonderland, walking up twisting kaleidoscope stairs into the depths of the earth as she chased her make-believe white rabbit.

But however each dream occurred, she always woke up, in the end, none the wiser to the adventures she may have went on, nor of the lessons she may have learned. However, there did come about, one day, a dream that she was sure could be reality, but she remembered that reality had left her on a bed, facing a bright pink wall decorated with flower print. The bright blue sky bordered by mounds of white snow was certainly the reality within a dream. Her eyes fluttered, and her mouth hung agape as she slowly sat up and brushed the melting snow from her hair. She looked out and saw a featureless white field spread out forever on all sides, and she had to squint to make out the dark line of trees far to her left. The mound of snow she sat in seemed to be the only blemish on the otherwise flat plane around her.

 _"Where is this place? A dream? A nightmare?_ " She wondered. She tried to remember how she could have gotten here, but there were only faint flashes of memory, images that flittered at the edge of her consciousness like moths surrounding a porch light. She reached for them, but they flittered away.

_A hand gripped her own, squeezing lightly in an attempt to convey comfort. Green eyes stared deeply into hers, made comically larger by a pair of too-big glasses lenses. A warmth and a loving presence embraced her, and she squeezed the body surrounding her with a ferocity surprising for her tiny frame._

The memories disappeared as if they were tiny mice, fleeing into fields of grass as a hawk flew by overhead. Her heart ached at the loss, and a sense of urgency seemed to overtake her, insisting that she chase those mice into the field. Somehow she knew she would be lost without them.

She shivered, and it was only then that she realized that she wore only a thin hospital gown and a cloth wrapped around her head. She was barefoot, and she reached down to rub some warmth back into her toes. Her breath curled in the air in a thick cloud, and for a moment she fancied herself a dragon as she huffed out a bigger breath.

Once she had restored feeling in her toes, she bent back up and stood, her eyes raking the flat landscape for a place to take shelter. But there was no place for her to go, other than the distant line of trees, so she turned to the left and began her trip. She allowed her mind to wander as she walked, and imaginations of an adventure took her mind. She hopped forward enthusiastically, laughing, despite the cold that froze her feet.

A glance behind her revealed a line of tracks that led back to the lonely mound, tiny tracks that marked the path of her adventure.

 _"At least I can find my way back if I get lost,"_ she thought.

She turned back and traveled on for some time, her gaze set on the edge of the forest. The smile on her lips gradually began to fade, though, as it became apparent that there was something amiss. She stopped abruptly and stepped backwards slightly, her eyes locked on the edge of the trees. 

 _"How odd",_ she thought. It seemed that she moved no distance at all towards the trees, despite having moved forwards a considerable distance. She continued to back step, until her heel suddenly struck a mound of snow behind her. She stumbled, her hand falling behind her to catch herself. Her body planted softly on the mound of snow, and she was dismayed to realize that it was _her_ mound of snow, the exact spot where she had started. A faint indent from where her body had rested previously remained, only now mussed by her impact.

She looked out at the snow around her and saw no evidence of her previous travel.

_"How odd indeed."_

She had been traveling towards the tree line for a considerable amount of time. A few steps backwards should not have brought her back here. She got up and brushed the snow from her body, rubbing her arms and legs as she did so, attempting to encourage some warmth back into her limbs.

She stared out at the trees for a moment, contemplating her options. There seemed to be nowhere else to go, and walking out towards the vast nothingness would surely be a waste of effort. There was nothing to be seen on all sides. Yes, she must head to the left, to the trees.

So she set out again, walking forward for what felt like a great distance, not daring to glance back behind her. It seemed though, just as before, that she got no closer to the trees than she had been when she was standing by the mound. Frustration took her, and she looked behind her finally, only to cry out in despair as her gaze alighted on the mound of snow at her heels.

Frustration arose in her as she began to run, her gaze constantly slipping behind, watching as the mound of snow winked in and out of existence, constantly reappearing under her heels and fading away as she ran from it, only to wink back into existence a moment later.

She ran and ran, her throat raw from the cold winter air, her feet aching as they beat against the hard ground. She desperately tried not to cry but tears streaked down her face unbidden as she slowly realized the hopelessness of her situation.

Finally, she could run no more, and as she collapsed into the mound of snow, fresh tears leaving freezing tracks on her face s they cooled in the winter air.

" I am lost!" she cried. "Lost and trapped within a dream."

She hated to cry. Crying was something that tiny, bratty kids did. She wasn't a kid, she was eleven. Yet crying seemed to be the only thing to do. She buried her face in her hands, keeping her eyes open so that she could cry and watch the light in the cracks between her fingers turn her skin a glowing red.

She wished she could just leave. She wished she could just grow wings and fly away to that forest, or better yet, completely out of this dream. She wished all these tears could grant wishes.

"Well, a whole lot of good you're doing for yourself. While you're wishing for those wings, why don't you also wish for a pair of shoes or for a coat, you dumb child?"

Astonished, she lifted her head from her hands, her face flushed from crying and a newfound sense of embarrassment. She looked for the voice, and was quite surprised to see, not a person, but a white fox. The fox sat there as if it had been here the whole time, but she knew that it had not. It sat with an obvious sense of purpose and its attention was locked on her, the only other thing alive on this desolate landscape. Its dark eyes and nose were the only discernable features about it, as the rest of its body seemed to blend into the snow. It made it seem as if there were a face sitting on the surface of the snow. The thought made her smile.

"Are you going to answer my question, or are you going to stare like a brain-dead half-wit."

The fox was quite rude, she surmised, but she couldn't bring herself to care too much at the moment. She was cold, lost, and confused, and it seemed that she had been thrown into a fairy tale, and all that was missing was the darling prince. She would much prefer him over this cross fox. Even Alice had a modicum of help on her journey, why must she be stuck with such a rude character? She would much prefer the Hare and the Hatter.

"What?" She asked incredulously. 

The fox rolled its eyes. Sitting back on its haunches, it again opened its mouth to speak.

"I asked why you would wish for wings instead of something more practical, like a coat or a pair of shoes. Those would do you better than a lumbering pair of wings."

She didn't actually know why she wished for a pair of wings, specifically, but she certainly didn't like this fox, and she certainly hadn't asked for his opinion.

"I didn't think about what was practical, I just know I want to get away from here. Wings seemed the best way to get away." She sniffled, and then added on quickly, "But it doesn't matter in the end, does it? This is just a dream. It doesn't matter what happens here as long as I wake up in the end."

"Now what is the point of asking me rhetorical questions?" the fox sneered. "If you presume to already know the answer to a question, don't go wasting my time by asking me for it."

Even though anger welled up inside her, she did not know how to respond to the fox's ire. Instead, she allowed her anger to die back down and asked a question she supposed war worth asking.

"Do you know where we are, Mr. Fox?"

"You don't know?" He asked, his black eyes glittering as he appraised her.

"Well I-"

"Ah, of course you don't. No one who is lost knows where they are, then they would not be lost."

"Am I lost, sir?"she asked. All this banter with the fox was quickly confusing her.

"You seemed to think so earlier, but then again, if you're sure you're in a dream, then it doesn't matter."He answered mockingly, his head dipping down to eye a falling snowflake. It seemed that a light dust of snow had begun to fall since their conversation began, and she had been entirely unaware.

"Well, I don't know _where_ I am, but c-"

"Then you are lost," he quipped, his gaze disapproving and his expression twisted, as if he had just eaten something nasty.

"If you must know," he continued, "this is the land of lost things. Anyone and everything that is lost comes here until they can find their way."

"Are you lost Mr. Fox?"

"Hardly. I am not lost because I know exactly where I am. I am in the land of lost things."

She frowned. "Well, I know that I am in the land of lost things as well, so I cannot be lost." The fox shook his head. "No, you are still lost, which is why I am not lost. I cannot be lost if you are lost also. Besides, telling you where you are doesn't make you less lost, it just means you know where you are."

That really confused her. "But isn't everything in this land lost?"

"Indeed."

And the fox said nothing else.

She scratched her head, even more confused than she had been before. She _had_ wished to be in Wonderland, and the fox seemed a character from that world. Perhaps he was truly from there, and perhaps he was truly lost, despite his claims. There had to be some reason for the fox's presence in this place, otherwise he simply wouldn't be here, yet he seemed unwilling to answer the simplest question in a straightforward manner. Or, he may not know the answer himself, which would make them one in the same. She did not know why she was here, other than that she was lost, so perhaps the fox was wrong, and the _reason_ she was lost was what made her lost.

But what was the reason? She considered asking the fox, but decided against it. The fox would no doubt come up with some roundabout answer that would make them both more confused than they already were.

Absorbed in her musings, she failed to notice the fox walking away from her, out into the blank white plane, away from the trees. Suddenly afraid of being alone, she chased after him.

"Mr.Fox," She said, pulling up next to him. His expression portrayed no notice of her presence, but his ear twitched, so she knew he was listening.

"Why can I not reach the trees? I walked towards them for a long time, but every time I looked behind me, the mound of snow had caught up and I wasn't any closer to the trees."

The fox said nothing for a time, and the silence stretched out for so long that she was afraid he may not have heard her, until his eyes finally met hers, then quickly darted away to examine the snow around them.

"Perhaps it was not the mound of snow that chased you, but simply you walking in circles."

She frowned, confused once again. "I don't understand."

She turned around to look back at the mound of snow, only to realize that it had once again moved behind them.

The fox sighed in exasperation. "Now look what you've done!" He hopped away from her, once again setting out for the white emptiness.

"How do you ever expect to get anywhere if you keep looking back? No wonder you're lost," he said, not bothering to see if she was following.

She quickly followed after him, this time making sure to keep her gaze set in the distance. The fox continued shooting her annoyed glances, but said nothing. They walked in silence, and she found the quiet peaceful, but the absolute deadness of the air was unnerving.

"Those who walk towards the forest," the fox began, "often become more lost than they already were. Only some ever make it there, and those few are never seen again. I like to think it is because they finally found their way."

He went quiet for a moment, and she said nothing as he collected his thoughts.

"For some, the forest is a way out, but for most, it is never so easy. Many people have appeared on this plain and headed towards the forest, and I am not sure if they ever reached it. Many have braved the emptiness as well, and I am unsure of their fates. The souls that wander this plane are searching for what brought them here. It is a journey that must be made alone."

His eyes met hers again. "You should leave me. I will become lost, and you even more so if we continue on this path together."

She hummed, taking his words into consideration. If she simply turned her head, she would no doubt find herself standing back by the mound, and she could once again travel for the forest while he once again advanced back into the nothingness. She considered going back, simply taking the few steps backwards necessary to return to where she began and saving the fox the trouble of her presence.

But she didn't. Every time she worked up the courage to step away from the fox, it would fail, and her mind would return to the uncertain cacophony of thoughts. Is seemed that she could not build up the will to turn back now that she had gone so far, and with a companion at her side, no matter how sour his personality of how confusing his speech may be. It was more than she had had when she traveled for the forest alone. He was no mad hatter, but he would do.

She smiled, her decision made.

"I think I would be better off with you, if you don't mind the company."

The fox scowled. "I do mind... but I suppose I cannot stop you from following. Just don't get in the way."

She and the fox continued in that way for some time, saying little, yet portraying much with few words. She shared a familiarity with the fox that was unusual for those who are newly acquainted, yet she felt as if she had known the fox her whole life. When he did speak he was curt and often cross, and if she did manage to get him on some tangent of conversation, it would become twisted and obtuse as the fox took her words and jumbled them up into new meanings.

Their journey seemed to progress in much the same way her journey for the trees had earlier. They made no visible progress, but this time, she felt as if she was actually getting somewhere, and this time, she was not being mercilessly pursued by a mound of snow. When she asked about the mysterious movement across this plane, the fox answered quite cryptically.

"You could have walked for a thousand years and you would never have reached those trees. It is not the place you were meant to go, and there is nothing more to it than that."

The answer did not please her, but she had learned not to press for a straightforward explanation, as there was probably none.

While it seemed as if they made no progress, and she dared not look behind her to check, the fox seemed to know where he was going, and he made them change course several times. They came to another point at which the fox wished to turn, so he pulled ahead and told her once again, "You will see our tracks in the corner of your eye. Do not look directly at them, or we will end up where we began."

"Okay," she said, quite bored of the repeated instruction.

After an immeasurable amount of time, they reached a point in their journey when there was no longer vast fields of snow in the distance, but instead an abrupt wall of birch trees. They did not appear in the distance like the line of trees from before, but rather appeared very abruptly about a quarter mile ahead. As they drew closer, the swirls and knots in the wood of the trees seemed to stare at her like so many eyes, daring for her to turn away. She stared back, wondering what could be hidden between the trunks of the trees.

The fox trotted forward, not looking back as he entered the copse of white trees. She did not hesitate as she followed.

"What is this place?" She asked hesitantly, he voice reverberating off of the densely packed trees and echoing around her, fading into ghostly whispers towards the end.

"I know someone who lives here," the fox said. "If you wish to last another day in this place, you will need proper clothing and warm food."

Her curiosity piqued, she followed after the fox without question. Only now that the fox mentioned it did she remember that she was poorly equipped for the weather, and by all rights she should be freezing, but she was not, and somehow the reality of this did not surprise her. The cold raised gooseflesh on her skin and sent a shiver down her spine and penetrated her body in a way she could not describe. Yet she felt very warm all the same.

She fancied that she could control the cold here. Or at least her perception of it. If this was truly a dream and she was lost within it, then there should be nothing she couldn't do. If she wished the biting cold to leave her, then it was so, and she never thought of that as odd. If this was a nightmare, she would become her own sandman and chase the scary things away.

**Author's Note:**

> This ends rather abruptly because I am leaving it where past me stopped. This whole thing was originally two chapters, and 10th grade me only made it a quarter way into the second chapter before stopping. If you guys would like to see more of this, or if you even have a few ideas for it, just leave a comment or PM me if you like. I have no idea what past me had planned for this story. There are no notes or character files or anything. I wrote this before I knew fanfiction was a thing that existed, so I wasn't very thorough about covering my bases. The main character doesn't even have a name.  
> Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed.


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